Unseen Treasures

The lion looked at me with a gleam in his eye.

“Will you come in?”

He looked like some Egyptian monument; his haunches reached up as much as forty feet; his head was twice as tall as me. Settling down on his belly, he placed his head near the ground before me, and opened wide his mouth.

I thought of every enchanted treasure-house I had ever heard of. Aladdin’s cave, the open tree with the dog guardians with eyes as big as plates and saucers, holes in the ground, and leprechauns. Stable, fixed, every one of them. This creature, though, once I was inside of him, could travel anywhere. He was no stone lion. He was living; I could feel him breathing.

“If I go in, can I come out again?”

“Perhaps.”

“If I go out, can I come in again?”

“If you can find me. I have seen you twice before, but there is little chance that you would recognize me again.”

So He could, and would move. But this could be my only opportunity. I ventured a step to go in.

You would think that as I came closer, the beast would be obliging to let me in. Perhaps he would open his mouth wider, try to appear friendlier. Apparently, the lion had some different goal in mind. For every step closer I took, he increased his effort to look fearsome and uninviting. He bared his teeth; he glared at me. And somehow the opening got smaller. I could see his tongue, my path, rolling before me. Between two pairs of sharp teeth, I stepped in.

Within two paces, the lion’s mouth snapped shut with a blast of hot air. But the blast was the air of a blazing fire, not moist and dead. For six moments all was blackness, but in the seventh a light began to grow. It was a hot red light, and within a few minutes I could see to go. As I went further back the room began to look less like the cavern of a mouth and more like some volcanic cave, for though the walls became like rock, they were red, not black or white, and an intense heat came from them, like freshly hardened lava. A stairway formed with no banisters (perhaps the lion had stood up since I came in). I walked down them, ready to see my treasures.

As I walked on, the light began to get brighter, and began to turn a cooler, whiter shade, though I could feel the hot air still wafting past me. And the walls began to change. Soon the tunnel widened into a room with walls made of white scales, like a dragon’s. It was as if someone had taken a knife to a giant pearl and laid the walls and ceilings with it’s shavings. The bright white light seemed to come directly from the walls, floor and ceiling.

“How many voices do you hear?”

I had never seen a regal-looking sheep before. But as I turned around, there was a sheep, about three feet tall, that seemed to present the most perfect aura of majesty I had ever seen. He did not tilt his head up to me expectantly, but looked straight at me, or even down at me, though I was taller. In his eyes was a calm assurance I had rarely seen in any men.

“How many voices do you hear?” He asked.

“None! Well, one, if you are speaking.”

“Good. That is all you should hear in this place of safety.”

“Place of safety?! This is the most dangerous thing I have ever done!”

“Yes, but far better you be crushed in the Lion’s heart than you suffer any scratch outside of it.”

“So I am standing in the lion’s heart. I would have thought it would have been red and dark. Where is all the blood?”

The sheep smiled. “All the blood has been sent to other places for a while. We are in-between beats. Outside the heart there will be many voices and gurglings, but here you should hear only my voice. The treasure that you are looking for here is the walls themselves, not the blood. They are made of living pearl. Touch them.”

I reached over and touched the wall. It was not hard, but both soft and resistant, like cartilage. My hands were both burned and shot through with cold. The effect was so startling that very quickly I had to take them away.

“Now look at your hands.”

I looked at my hands. All the lines and wear of living seemed to have been completely sloughed away. My palms were pale and almost every mark of texture was erased. I looked up at the sheep and smiled dumbly.

“Place your hands over your eyes.”

I placed my hands over my eyes.

“Open your eyes.”

With my hands still there, I opened my eyes. I could still see the room clearly through the outline of my hands.

“I’m invisible! I suppose that when I take my hands away from my eyes, I can still see them?”

“Of course. Whatever has touched the heart of the Lion is made transparent, not invisible. Now, you must go on.”

I continued walking, with the sheep still beside me, but when I came to the end of the room, there was no opening.

“How am I to get out?”

“You must walk through the wall. I couldn’t let you out until you became wholly transparent.”

So, I stretched out my arms, placed my hand on the pearl wall, and pressed through. Soon that tingling, burning sensation was passing though every part of my body. Apparently it was a very thick wall.

As I stepped out, I pondered. I suppose I had expected that this treasure hunt would yield treasures that I could carry out. But if I had thought that, I probably should have tried to carry some sort of satchel. But, in a living treasure-house where the guardian is the gate, I ought to have realized that I would not obtain the ordinary sort of treasures. Now every part of my body, though visible, was perfectly transparent. Anybody who desired could quickly see everything that was in me. Oh God, I thought, I hope there is nothing in me that is embarrassing to see!